• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.719-737
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• 2020

Live-streaming commerce business is growing as the consumption of video content and Smartphone shopping increases. This study examines the following three aspects: whether para-social interaction influences perceived interactivity; whether seller trust affects satisfaction with the experience; whether relationships are controlled by a moderated mediator of self-image congruity. An online survey was conducted with 203 women aged 20-30 years. They were asked to respond to the survey after watching a beauty category live-streaming commerce broadcast. The results revealed that the para-social interaction had a significant effect on perceived interactivity, seller trust and satisfaction with the experience. The findings also indicated that the perceived interactivity and seller trust mediated the relationship between para-social interaction and satisfaction with the experience. Regarding the mediated moderation effect of self-image congruity, it was statistically significant between para-social interaction and perceived interactivity through seller trust. A higher level of consumer's self-image congruity influenced the greater effect of para-social interaction on live commerce experience. This study makes important theoretical contributions to the para-social interaction in mobile commerce industry by emphasizing the mediating role of perceived interactivity and seller trust. This is achieved by examining the moderating effects of self-congruity on satisfaction with the experience. The results also verify the seller's crucial role in live-streaming commerce market which leads to the consumers greater fulfillment.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.70-83
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• 2021

Live-streaming commerce is attracting attention as a noticeable trend in the retail industry. It is a new mobile shopping service platform developed by combining live streaming with e-commerce technologies. This study examined the impact of para-social interactions on consumer impulse buying behavior and investigated the impact through task complexity as well as perceived amount of information. To achieve this goal, 203 women using a mobile commerce participated in an online survey after experiencing beauty live-streaming commerce. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0, AMOS 23.0, and SPSS PROCESS Macro program. The results of the study revealed that para-social interactions negatively influenced task complexity, positively influenced perceived amounts of information, and positively influenced impulse buying behavior. In addition, impulse buying behavior was negatively influenced by task complexity versus positively that was influenced by perceived amounts of information. The impact of para-social interactions on impulse buying behavior is mediated by task complexity and perceived information. The findings of this study contribute to the theoretical extension of para-social interaction on impulse buying behavior in the context of live-streaming commerce. The implications of the findings suggest practical marketing strategies for digital media commerce retailers.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.16-24
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• 2020

The study empirically explored factors influencing How storytelling factors in social networking services, SNS, affect consumer response on the uses and gratification theory. conducted an analysis of 120 university students attending universities in the Seoul metropolitan area using an experiment. The results of this study are as follows: first, The storytelling factors, relevance and veracity have a positive effect on clarity. second, it has been shown that only veracity has a positive effect on parai-social interaction with media figures with emotional attachment. third, para-social interactions have been shown to influence content attitudes and orality sequentially. This study deals with the effect of SNS storytelling on the consumer's part, providing practical implications for enhancing content attitudes and word-of-mouth, by increasing para-social interactions with consumers while identifying the components that should enhance the way SNS is delivered in terms of storytelling.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.82-104
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• 2022

One of the interesting social phenomena in short-form video platforms is the hashtag challenge wherein ordinary users are encouraged to create by imitating short viral videos on a particular theme. Despite the increasing popularity of hashtag challenges, theoretical discussion on related user behavior is still very insufficient. In this study, we attempted to examine the impact of micro-influencers in order to understand users' willingness to participate in hashtag challenges. For this purpose, the para-social interaction theory and imitation behavior literature were adopted as key theoretical basis. In an empirical investigation using 243 survey data from TikTok users, our study found that a user's illusion of intimacy with a micro-influencer (i.e., para-social interaction) had significant positive impact on the intention to participate in a hashtag challenge. This study also showed that the degree of para-social interaction in a short-form video platform was determined by both media content-related factors and media character-related factors (i.e., content attractiveness, physical attractiveness, and attitude homophily). Our work in this study provided significant theoretical and practical implications on how to leverage micro-influencers for the success of hashtag challenges in a short-form video platform.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.121-134
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• 2021

As interest in stock markets is growing recently in Korea, more investors in their twenties are using the information provided by personal broadcasting channels on YouTube. This study explores how watching the stock market channels on YouTube influences watching behaviors and investment intentions. A structural equation modeling analysis of survey data from 219 adults in the twenties revealed that the perceived credibility of and para-social interaction with the YouTube influencers affected continued viewing intentions. The findings also showed that the effect of identification with the influencers on viewing satisfaction was more prominent when identification mediated the effect of para-social interaction on viewing satisfaction. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.464-480
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• 2022

With the steady development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), online stores are adopting chatbot services as virtual shopping assistants. This study proposes the concept of para-social presence to explore the undiscovered role of fashion chatbots' emotional and relational characteristics on service acceptance. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this study investigates the effect of a chatbot's para-social presence on service acceptance intention through consumers' beliefs. The web-based experiment was conducted on adult consumers who experienced chatbot services in an online shopping situation. A total of 247 responses were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and multi-group SEM by AMOS 21.0 and SPSS 23.0. The findings illustrate that the chatbot's intimacy positively influenced consumers' perceived enjoyment, while the chatbot's understanding had a significant effect on perceived usefulness and ease of use. The chatbot's involvement had a positive effect on all consumer beliefs. Moreover, perceived ease of use had a positive influence on usefulness. A greater level of perceived usefulness and enjoyment positively heightened consumers' service acceptance intention. This study also verifies the moderating role of a need for human interaction. Consumers with a high need for human interaction have a relatively low tendency to perceive chatbot services as useful.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.165-174
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• 2016

Recently, global economic recession has a significant influence on promoting launch of start-ups around the world. As is often the case, powerful and bright entrepreneurship is required so that the start-ups may be successful in their target markets. Despite the fact that numerous studies about impact of the entrepreneurship on start-ups exist in literature, there is no study attempting to recognize importance of social learning about entrepreneurship on individual creativity of those who have intentions to become entrepreneurs of start-ups. In this sense, this study proposes a new research model in which social learning about entrepreneurship is assumed to have an influence on individual creativity of start-ups candidates. For the sake of proving the proposed research model more rigorously, we include those constructs such as para-social interaction, imitation of role model, and internal motivation. We garnered 89 valid questionnaires from college students who were invited to the experiments designed for this study. Results proved that para-social interaction and imitation of role model affect internal motivation significantly, which in turn affects individual creativity positively. These results also provide theoretical directions revealing the embedding process of entrepreneurial capital among society.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.72-82
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• 2013

The present study explored types of Twitter-mediated communication and emotional responses of Twitter users toward celebrities. Three perspectives of para-social interactions, information hub, and fandom were proposed as communication types on Twitter. Celebrities were classified by entertainer, politician, specialist, and blogger. Communication patterns according to each category of celebrities were analyzed. The patterns of emotional responses, which represents the use of emoticons and emotional expressions were also analyzed. The results show that the type of para-social interactions was frequently accepted for the interactions with politicians and specialists, while fandom style was salient for the entertainers. For the power bloggers, the users tend to adopt the type of information hub interaction. The use of emotions and emotional expressions were most frequent in case of fandom style communication and the messages to the entertainers. Implications were further discussed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.138-154
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• 2021

'Live commerce', a brand new format of online shopping, is actively promoted in China recently. This research focused on 'Taobao-live', China's largest live commerce platform to investigate the relationships among para-social interaction, source characteristics (e.g., trustworthiness, attractiveness, and expertise), perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and shopping intention based on Technology Acceptance Model. A total of 536 Taobao live users were recruited through the Chinese research platform. The results showed that para-social interactivity positively affected perceived ease of use and usefulness, whereas the source characteristics had no significant effect on consumers' perceptions. Furthermore, higher perceived ease of use generated higher perceived usefulness, and both perceived ease of use and usefulness positively influenced consumers' intention to shop through Taobao live. This research can provide theoretical background for understanding the potential of live commerce platforms and help brands come up with effective online shopping strategies using live commerce platforms.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.30-46
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• 2020

New media is rapidly changing with the recent development of the technology of transmitting, producing, editing, and sharing video information. This study investigates the effects of one person media broadcasting use motivation and social viewing on consumer attitudes toward brand, brand engagement, and purchase intention. It was fond that motives such as differentiation, social interaction with other viewers, mutual interaction with BJ, information-seeking, and new fun-seeking positively affected brand attitudes. Also, the same motives except fun-seeking positively affected brand engagement. Only mutual interaction with BJ and information-seeking were found to be positively related to purchase intention. Meanwhile, para-social relationships, social presence, and subjective norm positively influenced on brand attitudes and purchase intention each. Also, para-social relationships and social presence were positively related to brand engagement. Theoretical and practical implications, and suggestions for future studies are discussed in detail.